The recent publication of Raising Our Sights, the DH report into support for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities set out a challenge for everyone concerned with understanding and responding to people with such disabilities. A number of projects have produced practical guides for involving and engaging with people, for example, Mencap’s Involve Me [read the full story…]
In 2010, the Department of Health published Raising our Sights, Professor Jim Mansell’s report into services and supports for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. The Government’s response was to broadly welcome the report’s recommendations and “its central message that the major obstacles to wider implementation of policy for adults with profound intellectual and [read the full story…]
As you know here at Elf towers, we are committed to bringing you the evidence, so that you can make informed decisions about practice. However I hope you’ll forgive a slight deviation from this aim this Friday, as we bring to your attention the publication of yet another report that highlights poor NHS care. On [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about the challenges faced by people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in communication and the ways in which those who support them might use a variety of tools to improve this. Researchers have asked whether it might be possible to look at changes in physiology to provide information on emotions [read the full story…]
Supporting people with profound learning disabilities creates a communication challenge for those in the supporting role raising the question of how best to understand and respond when people do not use words to communicate. We have posted previously about resources available to help with this issue, for example national projects like Mencap’s Involve Me as [read the full story…]
The late Jim Mansell recently identified the need for all of us supporting people with profound learning disabilities to ‘raise our sights’ in ensuring better quality support and subsequently better outcomes requires a significant amount of skill (see Raising our Sights) Projects like Mencap’s Involve Me offer a range of resources aiming to break down [read the full story…]
Multi-sensory story telling is one way that adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities can make sense of who they are and what is happening in their day to day lives. The books used are individualised stories which, in addition to verbal text, also involve sensory stimulation. The approach is gaining in popularity, but as [read the full story…]
Difficulties experienced by people with learning disabilities with communication can impact greatly on their ability to have control over their lives. Problems can be with receptive, expressive, or written domains. The researchers in the present study set out to look specifically at the communication difficulties faced by 204 people described as having profound learning disabilities [read the full story…]
A recent review of literature suggested that interactions between support workers and people with learning disabilities with congenital deafblindess were lacking both in quantity and in quality. The authors of the current small study wanted to look in more detail at the perspectives of the support staff on their interactions with this group of people. [read the full story…]
Storytelling has a key role to play in a development and the extension of storytelling to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) as an individualised activity, has been increasingly undertaken emphasising the sensory experience and the potential for social interaction. The authors of this study appear generally positive to the approach, although the [read the full story…]
